Saturday, June 23, 2018

Taur Matan Ruak on Tight Rope

This story in the Associated Press about the latest saga in the formation of new Timor Leste government gives the strongest signal yet that the
alliance is cracking. Negotiations for the line up of the VIII Constitutional Government have been tense.
Three political parties all want a big slice of power in the new
government tried to muscle in their people. Xanana wants to control
power by having his people in key position where the money is: finance,
petroleum, infrastructure, veterans, etc. Matan Ruak wants to be the PM
at all cost even if without control of the government (budget).
And then KHUNTO comes in asking for key positions like interior
(security), social solidarity, etc. New positions are also created just
to accommodate others who could potentially become spoilers. But right
now the biggest spoiler of them all seems to be President Fracisco Guterres Luolo. But
is it? A week before the government was sworn in rumour had it that
Matan Ruak had asked President Fracisco Guterres Luolo to block some CNRT appointees
from the government lineup. Taur had promised during the campaign that
he would lead a clean government free of corruption and mismanagement.
And that means he would not allow anyone with questionable record to
join his government. For his part Matan Ruak sent a list of PLP
appointees to CAC and Prosecutor General's office to get clearance., something that neither CNRT nor KHUNTO did.

A day before the
swearing in President's office informed AMP that about a dozen of their
appointees have not been accepted by President Lu. And those people, now
we know that there are 11 of them, include people like Francisco
Kalbuady who had been named by Aljazeera as having been involved in
major corruption scandal in FIFA, for which Sepp Blatter was forced
to stand down. Back home, Kalbuady had been the worst performing
minister whose tourism portfolio had been a total failure. As head of our football federation (FFTL) Kalbuady also
provided TL passports to foreigners (mostly Brazilians) in violation of our immigration and naturalization laws in order
to have them play in our national soccer team.

Other than Kalbuady, we now know that the exclusion list also includes;

- Gastao Sousa (planing and strategic investment) - formerly PD but switched to CNRT, ex minister of public works

Filomeno
Paixao was among the group that didn't take their oath on Friday. However Filomeno's is an
administrative matter. He is currently the number two person in FFDTL. He
has resigned but there is a number of administrative hurdles he has to
overcome before he could be exonerated from the military. The rest
either have ongoing cases before the court, have committed crimes
previously or are under suspicion. The President had himself sought
clearance from the courts and CAC for everyone on the AMP lineup.

Matan
Ruak is in a grave dilemma. He has branded CNRT in the past as the most corrupt
political party in Timor before promising the electorate that he would
never accept CNRT as partner in whatever shape or form. But Matan Ruak's
PLP is a minor party in the coalition and would never, on its own, gain enough electoral support to take PLP
to power. PLP was lucky to have come to and understanding with CNRT and found common ground. Matan Ruak
wants to be PM, Xanana and CNRT want control of government. KHUNTO for
wahtever reason joined CNRT and PLP.

After the
2018 elections Matan Ruak got his way and given the job of PM. But would
he have full control of government? No! Xanana wants control of key
positions, which effectively controls most of the budget: infrastructure
and veterans. People like Gastao Sousa, Helder Lopes, Alfredo Pires
(petroleum) and Virgilio Smith are Xanana's most trusted elements in
CNRT. If AMP gets rid of Alkatiri from ZEESM, then Tomas Cabral would
also control another huge portion of the budget as ZEESM is under
ministry of state administration (at least under the VI government).
Most of the decisions about mega infrastructure projects (such as South
Coast and potentially ZEESM) will come under Xanana's control.

Matan
Ruak has two issues with the CNRT appointees. The first is that he
won't have effective control of government. The second is that his
credibility would be tarnished if his government included these
individuals. But he also wants to be PM!!!!! But his PLP with 8 seats is
very small compared to CNRT's 21. Taur doesn't call the shots and can't
call the shots. He couldn't force Xanana to exclude any CNRT appointee
to his government's line up. Hence, it makes sense for Matan Ruak to ask
President to block these people.

Anyone who
has been paying attention would notice that PLP and Matan Ruak have
stayed quiet when President Lu announced that he had removed those 11
people from the government's proposed line up. Matan Ruak, as president back in 2015, also did exactly the same when he refused to swear in Francisco Borolaco as the secretary of state for institutional strengthening (SEFI)!!

Xanana
was extremely vexed and wrote a blistering letter to his "brother" Taur
to repudiate President Lu's decision. In the letter he informed Taur
that neither he nor his CNRT appointees would be taking part in the
Friday's swearing in ceremony (well, CNRT ministers did show up at the ceremony and too their oath). Xanana also informed Matan Ruak that he
and CNRT have prepared a criminal case against President Lu regarding an
alleged $1 million payment from the government to President Lu.

The
CNRT mob have also been busy calling the President out for his
decision. CNRT's and AMP's (obviously controled by CNRT elements)
official social media sites have accused the President of trying to
plunge the country into chaos once again.

But the public opinion is firmly in favour of President Fracisco Guterres Luolo's decision.

Matan
Ruak and PLP is remaining quiet to avoid a confrontation with Xanana. A
confrontation with Xanan would spell the end of Matan Ruak's experience
as head of government almost immediately. But soon Xanana will ask
Matan Ruak to speak up as a partner in the coalition and as the head of
government. Will Matan Ruak side with Xanana and defy the President and
public opinion? He will start off his government with a big blemish on
his government. And as a nominal leader of the government (like Rui
Araujo was once) the government he leads will be commanded by Xanana and
CNRT (and rightly so as the largest party). Faced with a fierce
opposition as FRETILIN and PD, Taur and PLP will quickly lose support
and be overwhelmed by CNRT. If Matan Ruak decides to ignore Xanana's position and
Xanana calls on CNRT (and KHUNTO) to abandon the AMP government, then the so
called VIII Constitutional Government will quickly unravel. It was hard
enough for the FRETILIN-PD alliance to maintain a government with 30
seats. What can Matan Ruak and his PLP do with 8 seats? It could be the
shortest government that's ever lived. Difficult choices for Matan Ruak.

But...
Could Xanana and CNRT cave in to President's demands and appoint other
people with cleaner records? Unlikely. There is another reason why
Xanana particularly wants people like Kalbuady, Gastao Sousa and Helder
Lopes. They could potentially be called to answer questions in the court
the answers of which could incriminate Xanana. Emilia Pires has
conveniently ran away from Timor and settled in Portugal away from the reach of
Timor's courts. But there are others who could end up in
court and end up having to reveal "things". Just recently Gastao was
forced to admit that it was Xanana who instructed him to take government
vehicles for his private use. So trusting is Gastao of Xanana that he even removed the government registration plate and replaced it with a private one and encouraged his children to use the vehicles. Beyond this, there are other cases
involving hundreds of millions of dollars that have been, at best
mismanaged and wasted, or at worst, embezzled. As members of
government, these people would be immune from prosecution and that is precisely where Xanana wants them to be, in government and immune from prosecution. Imagine... If in 7
months in which Gastao ceased to be a member of government, our courts
managed to get his confession, what could 5 years do? President Lu
must be aware of this and that's why he has asked for these
individuals not to be included in Taur's government. Naturally Xanana
would oppose the President's decision.

And
Matan Ruak should know by now that he (and KHUNTO) is being used by CNRT
to shield certain individuals from prosecution, and to ultimately protect
certain leaders and their interests. In 2017's negotiation to form
government FRETILIN refused Xanana's requests to include, yes, Gastao Sousa and Santina Cardoso (ex finance minister who wasn't
included in this year's CNRT list because she has already been convicted and is
now appealing), Alfredo Pires, and others in the line up. And what happened? Xanan turned against FRETILIN and brought it down with Matan Ruak's help.
FRETILIN only managed to hold on to government for a few months thanks to Alkatiri's stubbornness. Will the same
thing happen to Matan Ruak's government? Will we head for another
election?